Authority of the Believer by John A. MacMillan

As Christians we need to know what is ours so we do not allow the devil to take advantage of us.
Knowing we have authority over the devil can set us free and give us renewed Faith to not let the devil win against us.
Read this classic book on The Authority of the Believer so you will be able to stand your ground.
http://hopefaithprayer.com/word-of-faith/john-a-macmillans-teaching-regarding-the-authority-of-the-believer-and-its-impact-on-the-evangelical-pentecostal-and-charismatic-movements/



John A. MacMillan’s Teaching Regarding the Authority of the Believer and its Impact on the Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic Movements – Paul L. King
by Paul L. King, D.Min., Th.D., Oral Roberts University.

SPS History Interest Group. Presenter: Paul L. King, D.Min., Oral Roberts University. Presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies

Most people associate teaching on the authority of the believer from a charismatic source, usually Kenneth Hagin or Kenneth Copeland. Some evangelicals, such as Hank Hanegraaff and John MacArthur tend to regard exercise of the believer’s authority, especially binding and loosing, as an excessive teaching of the charismatic movement.(1)  However, the original source of teaching on this vital doctrine comes not from the charismatic or Pentecostal movements, but from John A. MacMillan, a former Presbyterian layman who became a missionary, writer, editor, and professor, and from and his classic holiness roots in the Higher Life and Keswick movements. My doctoral dissertation presented a case study of the life, ministry, and impact of John MacMillan, particularly as it relates to the authority of the believer and spiritual warfare.(2) This paper is a distillation of that dissertation.
Introducing John A. MacMillan

John MacMillan (1873-1956) was a Canadian Presbyterian businessman who became actively involved with ministry to Chinese and Jewish people in Toronto.(3)  At the age of 41 he married Isabel Robson, who had been a missionary to China with China Inland Mission from 1895 to1906 and a personal nurse to J. Hudson Taylor. Ordained in 1923 at the age of 49, MacMillan and his wife went to China as missionaries with The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). He then became field director of the floundering C&MA mission work in the Philippines. Following the death of his first wife in 1928, he returned to North America to do pastoral and itinerant ministry. Subsequently, he became Associate Editor of The Alliance Weekly magazine, a member of the Board of Managers of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a professor at Missionary Training Institute in Nyack, New York, now known as Nyack College. In 1932 after nine years of many dramatic experiences with spiritual warfare, he wrote a series of articles in The Alliance Weekly, the periodical of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, entitled “The Authority of the Believer.”(4)  Eventually they were published in book form, distributed widely and also republished in other periodicals. MacMillan had a remarkable and extensive ministry in the exercise of the authority of the believer and spiritual warfare spanning more than thirty years.
MacMillan’s Exercise of the Authority of the Believer

John MacMillan’s practice of the authority of the believer began when as a businessman, he was informed that the house next to his house caught on fire. Calmly, “he committed the crisis to God in prayer, claiming divine protection according to Psalm 91:10 that ‘no destruction would befall the house.’” He drove home to find out that the fire had miraculously stopped at a wooden fence that separated the two houses.(5)

MacMillan turned his business over to another man when he left for the mission field, designating a portion of the profits to go to his missionary support, but the man reneged on his contract, failing to forward the funds. Speaking with the believer’s authority, MacMillan prophesied, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Eventually the business went bankrupt. So through MacMillan’s application of the believer’s authority, he was vindicated and the dishonest contract-breakers suffered the judgment of God.(6)

On the mission field in China an Asiatic cholera epidemic threatened the mission. MacMillan again confessed Psalm 91:3, “Surely he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence.” He prayed, “May we be enabled to keep the Home ‘in the secret place of the Most High and under the shadow of the Almighty.’” They emerged victorious and received divine protection from the plague. (7)

MacMillan told of how Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries would claim land from demonic control in China and bind the powers of darkness. On a certain occasion, the missionaries took possession of a piece of land and began moving logs. Evil spirits resisted the takeover by projecting a supernatural voice from a log. The voice in the log threatened, “Don’t you dare move it!” The missionaries were not taken aback, but rebuked the voice. They then removed the log without any further incident and gained the victory over the dark powers.  MacMillan’s most dramatic illustration of exercising the authority of binding and loosing occurred in 1924 when several missionaries were kidnapped. As MacMillan and the remaining missionaries exercised the believer’s authority of binding and loosing, the missionaries were released without harm.(9)

John MacMillan’s exercise of the authority of the believer and engagement with the powers of darkness increased during his ministry in the Philippines. He exercised authority over nature, binding the Enemy as a tree fell toward him and the mission buildings. As a result, the tree fell between the buildings, causing no harm to the buildings or himself. MacMillan perceived in this startling occurrence of divine protection a spiritual message from the Lord, “The way out is blocked—is it not a gracious call to prayer, lest the great adversary block our efforts and shut us up in a small place? We have prayed for the binding of the strongman—we must watch and pray that the strong man does not bind us.”(10)  As he took authority over tobacco addictions, many people were set free and in one district in the Philippines, all the believers stopped growing tobacco.(11)

Another remarkable and dramatic demonstration of MacMillan’s authority as a believer resulted in miraculous healing of his broken leg. Retired pastor Otto Bublat recalls that MacMillan described the incident years later in a class at the Missionary Training Institute: “Once on an emergency mission trip where he was alone on the rainy slippery trail, he slipped and broke his ankle. . . . His only recourse was the Lord since he was alone and about twenty miles from even a first aid station. In simple faith, he stepped out and began walking those many miles. He got home safely, and shortly thereafter had the ankle X-rayed. There had been a clean break, but it was perfectly healed.”(12)

MacMillan frequently exercised authority over demonic occult powers in China, the Philippines, and later in North America. On one occasion, a spiritist witchdoctor was performing a ceremony, chanting in a trance-like mediumistic state and calling on the spirits. A drum in the room began to beat in rhythm without anyone touching it. Then it rose to the ceiling in a state of levitation. MacMillan walked into the room, took authority over the spirits, rebuking them in the name of Jesus Christ. The drum immediately dropped to the floor and ceased pounding.(13) This was a strong demonstration of what we call today a “power encounter.”

For nearly three years, he battled the principalities and powers in the Philippines and encountered personal attack upon him and his wife. In the midst of his wife’s grave illness he wrote in his diary: “We are, by prayer in Jesus’ name, dislodging the spirits that have bound the people of this field. It seems to me that an infernal fiat has gone forth that we must be crushed. But, ‘rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; though I fall, I shall rise.’ God is with us and we shall live and triumph.”(14) His wife died a month later, but her death was not a defeat for MacMillan and the Philippine mission. Rather, it galvanized and united people in prayer more and more. The morale and fortitude the Enemy tried to destroy was actually strengthened. His son Buchanan remarked, “This seemed to be the beginning of a new era of spiritual life in the mission field that . . . has been singularly unresponsive and discouraging.”(15)  The loss that resulted in the breaking of John’s heart actually became a breakthrough—a breaking of the Enemy’s stronghold on the peoples of the Philippines. The outbreak of revival for which MacMillan had been earnestly praying and waging war for more than three years began the latter part of 1929 as the floodgates opened and hundreds were converted in the ensuing months. MacMillan’s legacy continues into the twenty-first century, for out of the Philippine mission that MacMillan revitalized, the Christian and Missionary Alliance has grown to be the largest evangelical Protestant church denomination in the Philippines today. All this has been the outcome of the exercise of the authority of the believer.

MacMillan was a trailblazer in the concept of “territorial spirits,” describing what he called “praying geographically” in dealing with demonic strongholds over a region. He appealed for intercessors at home “to roll back the powers of the air, and make it possible to bring the Truth to bear on these regions where the devil is blocking the way.”(16) He had viewed his battle for Isabel’s life as an “infernal fiat” intended to crush them because they were dislodging the spirits that held the territories of the Philippines in darkness. He also was a pioneer of recognizing and dealing with generational bondage. Predating modern teaching on “generational sin” and “generational curses” by decades, MacMillan warned on the basis of Exodus 20:5, of the consequences of sin being visited upon succeeding generations, what he called “an inexorable law of return and of increase,” and the “principle of heredity.”(17)
The Development of Teaching on the Authority of the Believer

John MacMillan was not the first to teach principles on the authority of the believer, but he was apparently the first to combine many of those principles together into one treatise and to expand upon them, thus becoming the seminal writer on the concept. The notion of the authority of the believer arose originally out of the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of the believer and developed embryonically. A. J. Gordon notes that Swiss healing movement leader Dorothy Trudel realized the authority of the believer, declaring that it is the believer’s privilege to be kings and priests of God.(18)  The Keswick and Higher Life movements picked up the theme with their emphasis on Covenant theology and the privileges and inheritance of the saints through the Covenant. In 1885, Andrew Murray was teaching that believers have authority: “Church of the living God! Your calling is higher and holier than you know! God wants to rule the world through your members. He wants you to be His kings and priests. Your prayers can bestow and withhold the blessings of heaven.”(19)  He quoted famed Scottish preacher and hymn writer Horatius Bonar, saying, “God is seeking kings. Not out of the ranks of angels. Fallen man must furnish Him with the rulers of His universe. Human hand must wield the scepter; human hands must wear the crown.”(20)  In 1895, as interim successor to Charles Spurgeon, A. T. Pierson taught, “Obedience to Him means command over others; in proportion as we are subject to Him; even the demons are subject to us in His name.”(21) Pierson also taught “the authority of faith”: “This we regard as the central, vital heart of this great lesson on Faith. The Master of all girds the servant with His own power and entrusts him with authority to command.”(22)

The concept of the believer’s authority was also taught in germinal form by Pierson’s friend A. B. Simpson, founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, in an article entitled “The Authority of Faith”:

The word “power” should be frequently translated “authority,” in the New Testament. “Behold, I give unto you authority,” Christ says, “to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

He did not promise the disciples power first, but the authority first; and as they used the authority, the power would be made manifest, and the results would follow.

Faith steps out to act with the authority of God’s Word, seeing no sign of the promised power, but believing and acting as if it were real. As it speaks the word of authority and command, and puts its foot without fear upon the head of its conquered foes, lo, their power is disarmed, and all the forces of the heavenly world are there to make the victory complete.

This was the secret of Christ’s power that He spake with authority, prayed with authority, commanded with authority, and the power followed. The reason we do not see more power is because we do not claim the authority Christ has given us. The adversary has no power over us if we do not fear him, but the moment we acknowledge his power, he becomes all that we believe him to be. He is only a braggart if we will dare to defy him, but our unbelief clothes him with an omnipotence he does not rightly possess. God has given us the right to claim deliverance over all his attacks, but we must step out and put our foot upon his neck as Joshua taught the children of Israel to put their feet upon the necks of the conquered Canaanites, and faith will find our adversaries as weak as we believe them to be. Let us claim the authority and the victory of faith for all that Christ has purchased and promised for our bodies, our spirits, or His work.(23)

MacMillan expanded upon Simpson’s teaching. An article by Simpson in The Alliance Weekly on June 14, 1919, would appear to be a source for MacMillan’s policeman analogy of spiritual authority: “‘I give you authority.’ This is the policeman’s badge which makes him mightier than a whole crowd of ruffians because, standing upon his rights, the whole power of the state is behind him. . . . Are we using the authority of the name of Jesus and the faith of God?”(24)  MacMillan, further expounding upon the idea in The Authority of the Believer, changed the illustration from a mob to bustling traffic stopped by a policeman at a busy intersection.(25)  MacMillan’s illustration has since been frequently used to describe the believer’s authority.

At a China Inland Mission conference in 1897 Jessie Penn-Lewis, whose writings MacMillan absorbed, taught on the believer’s position in Christ according to Ephesians 1 and 2.(26) Later, in 1912 she and Evan Roberts included a short section on the believer’s authority in their book War on the Saints.(27)  Also about 1897, A. B. Simpson, also began teaching the believer’s position in Christ according to Ephesians 1.(28) Whether he was influenced by Penn-Lewis, or vice versa, we cannot be sure, but apparently, they all came to the same basic insight, either through the Holy Spirit independent of one another or perhaps through interchange of ideas. MacMillan’s book The Authority of the Believer is a more thorough exposition of the position of the believer according to Ephesians 1 and 2, expanding on the germinal thought of both Penn-Lewis and Simpson. Alluding to Simpson’s exposition of Ephesians entitled The Highest Christian Life, MacMillan wrote, “The Epistle to the Ephesians is the manual of the higher life. In a fuller degree perhaps than any of the others its leads the believer up to the heights of fellowship, of authority, and of victory.”(29)

The concept of throne life described by Simpson is one of the foundational principles of MacMillan’s understanding of the authority of the believer. MacMillan declared that the believer can assert “in prayer the power of the Ascended Lord, and the believer’s throne union with Him.”(30)  Again he writes, “Where in faith the obedient saint claims his throne-rights in Christ, and boldly asserts his authority, the powers of the air will recognize and obey.”(31)  Commenting on Exodus 17, he writes, “The rod [of Moses] symbolizes the authority of God committed to human hands. By it the holder is made a co-ruler with his Lord, sharing His throne-power and reigning with Him. . . . So today, every consecrated hand that lifts the rod of the authority of the Lord against the unseen powers of darkness is directing the throne-power of Christ against Satan and his hosts in a battle that will last until ‘the going down of the sun.’”(32)

The theme of throne life permeated the Keswick, Higher Life, and Overcomer movements. In 1888, George B. Peck, a friend of A. J. Gordon and A. B. Simpson, wrote his book Throne-Life, or The Highest Christian Life, in which he wrote concerning “throne-power,” or the “command of faith.”(33)  Also in the late 1800s George D. Watson, popular Methodist holiness leader who later affiliated with the C&MA, wrote Steps to the Throne.(34) In 1906, Jessie Penn-Lewis wrote a booklet entitled Throne Life of Victory, which was hailed as “God’s answer to powers of darkness.”(35)  MacMillan developed his concept most directly from George D. Watson’s book Bridehood Saints in a chapter entitled “The Hand on the Throne” (also one of MacMillan’s sub-titles).(36)

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